Extreme Ping Pong: Conversation Partner Recap #4

Thankfully, the weather didn’t mess up our ability to play Ping-Pong this week. I met my conversation partner downstairs in the rec center. After talking about how our weeks went and what our Ping-Pong “skills” were like, we quickly started to play Ping-Pong. After warming up and explaining that besides the serve the ball shouldn’t bounce on her side, we were ready to see how Ping-Pong went. We were pretty good at Ping-Pong, besides the fact that a lot of the time we weren’t even hitting the table. We were playing “extreme ping pong”.

While I was running side-to-side and stretching to try and get the ball, we started talking about our summer plans. Mine included teaching at a tennis camp, and hers was going to California and then coming back to teach musical theatre camp. She told me that she would let me know when she was back, so that I could see the camp.

Throughout our game, students from the IEP program were walking past and saying hi to my conversation partner. It was really fun, because I got to experience a bit of the IEP community, and learn their names and countries when they walked past me. My conversation partner even called out to some of her friends in Arabic and said that she only knows a few words.

We also discovered that we were both Catholic. Something that was completely new because we had never discussed religion before. In her town, there are only Catholics, even though her country is officially Muslim. She also said that in her country, no one judged you by your religion and that the religions had all united together in some of the current events.

Since we were talking about religion, we talked about our Easter plans, which both include singing in our churches’ choirs. I also invited her to come and attend mass with me since her host family is Methodist. Throughout our Easter talk, we discussed how in America a big part of Easter is the chocolate. In her country, they focus more on Jesus and religion during Easter rather than the presents. We also discussed how her family is feeling about Easter since her and her brother won’t be there for this Easter holiday.

Back to ping pong, we also played around with how we were hitting the ball. I started off trying to switch to my right hand (I’m naturally left handed). That was an interesting experiment and gave us a lot of laughs. Even though, I have to say I wasn’t too bad at the whole right-handed thing. Playing with both hands on the paddle was a bigger challenge, and was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time laughing as we tried (and failed) to play Ping-Pong. Ever the clumsy human being, I didn’t walk away from this meeting completely unscathed. When retrieving the ball, I misjudged the distance from the chair, and ended up whacking my eye into the corner of the chair. I was wearing glasses, so thankfully there was no damage.

Towards the end of our meeting, we discussed classes, and my conversation partner brought up how she needed to attend a lecture for her IEP program. She needs to attend a class lecture in English. We discussed which lectures I was in, and which ones she would be able to attend. I’m very excited for her to attend one of my classes and learn more about my major and what I do with my life.  

One of the big challenges of today, was trying to talk while we were playing Ping-Pong. It was a loud environment, so it was hard to hear and understand what each other were saying. Thankfully, that was our biggest challenge, and one that is easily solved. It was great to hang out with my conversation partner and play Ping-Pong. I'm not sure what we will be doing for our next meeting, but I know it will be fun!